The Michael Knowles Show - January 05, 2026


Ep. 1883 - Trump Kidnaps A Venezuelan Communist Dictator REACTION


Episode Stats

Length

49 minutes

Words per Minute

164.71756

Word Count

8,188

Sentence Count

665

Misogynist Sentences

5

Hate Speech Sentences

41


Summary

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was arrested by the US military and put on a ship to be tried in New York City, which itself is currently being run by a communist mayor. What does this mean for the future of Venezuela and the world order?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Ay, ay, ay, ay, caramba. What a weekend. If you put your phone down for an hour and a half over
00:00:06.500 the weekend, you might have missed the war in Venezuela in which President Trump and the US
00:00:11.480 military invaded the country, arrested the communist president, and put him on a ship
00:00:17.640 to be tried in New York City, which itself is currently being run by a communist mayor.
00:00:23.260 Now, everyone is speculating on the implications of this action, what it means for US foreign
00:00:28.940 policy, what it means for America first, what it means for the global order. But I would first
00:00:33.860 like to offer an observation on the obvious next steps from here. Step one, depose Maduro in
00:00:40.580 Venezuela. Step two, send him to New York to be tried for his crimes. Step three, depose Mamdani
00:00:49.520 in New York. Step four, install Maduro as mayor of New York City. Step five, and this is the strangest
00:00:57.660 part of all, both Venezuela and New York would improve as a result. I'm Michael Knowles. This
00:01:03.220 Michael Knowles show. Welcome back to the show. At least Maduro is not a Muslim, right?
00:01:26.440 Does that, I mean, look, I'm not saying, neither are ideal. You don't want communist dictators
00:01:32.520 anywhere. But I'm just offering something that I haven't seen other people float. The real question
00:01:37.820 for a lot of people right now is what happens now? Are we headed into some 20-year occupation
00:01:43.200 like Afghanistan? Are we heading into some years-long occupation like Iraq? What does this
00:01:48.040 mean for America first? What does this mean for the so-called non-interventionist crowd? And
00:01:53.000 we'll get into all of that because this was really, really artfully done by the president.
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00:03:31.920 The operation was over in 88 minutes. When I say if you put your phone down for an hour and a half,
00:03:38.260 you missed it, that doesn't even tell you the whole story because it happened in the middle of the
00:03:42.200 night. It happened at two o'clock in the morning, Eastern time or local, Caracas time.
00:03:47.340 It happened while we were all asleep. From the time that the US forces got to Maduro's compound
00:03:55.200 to the time they were out of the country, back in international waters with the president of
00:04:01.560 Venezuela, it was 88 minutes. Now, how did they get from the sea into Caracas? They just turned off
00:04:10.320 all the power and the defense systems in the country because apparently we can do that.
00:04:14.580 And then we sent in a team of like a dozen special operators and they just took the president
00:04:20.520 without incurring any casualties. It was, I don't care if you are the most isolationist right winger.
00:04:28.840 I don't care if you're the most anti-American leftist. You got to be impressed because I think
00:04:35.720 what this military action leaves a lot of Americans thinking beyond thoughts of Western hemispheric
00:04:42.120 hegemony and American imperialism and the drug trade and the international order. What it makes
00:04:51.960 us think first is, man, we still got it. You know, we still got it. We're back to back world war champs.
00:04:59.660 And then we went through kind of a malaise and we kept losing like every war after that.
00:05:05.200 The Korean conflict was sort of whatever. And then we lost Vietnam and then Iraq, we won and
00:05:10.000 then we lost. And Afghanistan, we won and then we lost. And it just, we're just in this malaise.
00:05:14.540 And then America does something like this. And you just think, oh, wow, man, there is no other
00:05:22.280 military on earth that can project power in, in any way, even slightly comparable to this.
00:05:31.380 Like this is just a totally different thing. And it's awesome. Here is president Trump describing
00:05:36.820 the operation. All the way back, it dated to the Monroe doctrines and the Monroe doctrine is a big
00:05:47.760 deal. But we've superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Monroe
00:05:55.560 document. I don't know. It's Monroe doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important,
00:06:03.600 but we forgot about it. We don't forget about it anymore. Under our new national security strategy,
00:06:08.820 American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. Won't happen.
00:06:15.160 So just in concluding for decades, other administrations have neglected or even
00:06:20.740 contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump
00:06:27.840 administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way in our home region.
00:06:35.560 And our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago.
00:06:40.500 So first, you know, I'm a sucker for a good pun. Monroe doctrine to Donro doctrine is awesome.
00:06:47.300 I want this applied to many other world historic events. I like the idea of Trump taking credit
00:06:53.040 for the Roman Empire giving terrestrial power to the popes. They call it, look, some people call it
00:07:00.440 the donation of Constantine. We call it the donation of Constantine. Okay, we're giving,
00:07:05.680 we're giving secular power to the popes. Love that. Love the Donro doctrine. And that line alone
00:07:13.540 answers a lot of worries and questions that people have. Is this like Iraq? No, because the Iraq war
00:07:21.840 was a matter of trying to extend neoliberal ideology all around the world. It was a 21st century
00:07:30.020 neo-imperialist endeavor that had all the downsides of imperialism without any of the upsides.
00:07:37.000 What happened in Venezuela is as American as apple pie. Deposing Latin American dictators
00:07:42.660 is an American pastime more traditional than baseball. Okay, we've done it zillions of times
00:07:48.560 over the years. It is based on the cornerstone of American foreign policy, which is the Monroe
00:07:53.440 doctrine, which says that other nations need to get out of our hemisphere. They need to stop messing
00:07:58.540 around in our backyard. We will not tolerate that. And that's what this is really about.
00:08:03.500 The predicate for the action was not a regime change war. It wasn't a war. The predicate was
00:08:11.020 the arrest of Nicolas Maduro, who the United States did not recognize as the legitimate leader of
00:08:17.660 Venezuela because he lost an election. A lot of the international community didn't recognize him as
00:08:21.940 legitimate. And he was arrested for the crime of narco-terrorism, which is what he's going to be
00:08:26.320 tried for in New York. That was the predicate for it. So you say, okay, we want to cut off the drugs
00:08:30.960 coming from Venezuela. He was effectively just the head of a cartel. And so we're going to arrest this
00:08:35.860 cartel guy, just the same way we'd arrest Pablo Escobar, or do a little worse than arrest Pablo
00:08:41.400 Escobar. That was one of the predicates. However, there are other interests, obviously, as well.
00:08:47.260 Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. So some people are pointing out this is a war for
00:08:51.300 oil, war for securing resources. To some degree, that's true, though that's overstated. But really what
00:08:56.260 this is about is that Venezuela was allied with hostile regimes. Venezuela was chummy chummy with
00:09:04.760 China and with Russia and with Iran and with a bunch of countries that don't like us. And they had
00:09:10.720 resources in Venezuela, and we're not going to tolerate that. Regardless of what you think about
00:09:15.560 the operation, though I think most people are very impressed by it, you'd have to say that is very,
00:09:19.880 very traditional. It's very much in the American national spirit. Okay, so what actually happened
00:09:26.760 here? We turn to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Raisin Cain.
00:09:32.040 Every component of our joint force was soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians working in
00:09:39.840 unison with our intelligence agency partners and law enforcement teammates in an unprecedented
00:09:45.740 operation. We leveraged our unmatched intelligence capabilities and our years of experience in
00:09:53.160 hunting terrorists. And we could not have done this mission without the incredible work by various
00:09:58.660 intelligence agencies, including the CIA, NSA, and NGA. We watched. We waited. We prepared. We remained
00:10:08.800 patient and professional. This mission was meticulously planned, drawing lessons from decades of missions
00:10:17.000 over the last many years. Decades of many missions over these last many years. This was an audacious
00:10:23.780 operation that only the United States could do. It required the utmost of precision and integration
00:10:32.020 within our joint force. And the word integration does not explain the sheer complexity of such a mission.
00:10:40.220 An extraction so precise, it involved more than 150 aircraft launching across the Western
00:10:47.880 Hemisphere. In close coordination, all coming together in time and place to layer effects for a single
00:10:57.140 purpose, to get an interdiction force into downtown Caracas while maintaining the element of tactical
00:11:05.140 surprise. Failure of one component of this well-oiled machine would have endangered the entire mission.
00:11:13.380 And failure is never an option for America's joint force.
00:11:18.020 It's just insane. There was a Reddit post going around where in the lead up to this Venezuela operation,
00:11:24.880 which has been telegraphed for months and months and months, which makes it all the more impressive
00:11:29.360 actually, because Maduro was expecting it and they still got him out in 88 minutes without any
00:11:33.380 American casualties. But there was this Reddit post going around that said, this is totally ridiculous.
00:11:38.240 What, you think US special forces are just like space marines who can just beam into a place,
00:11:43.620 take the nation's president and get out of there? Come on, that's ridiculous. A lot of American
00:11:48.580 servicemen would be killed. This would go on for days or weeks and this was just, you know,
00:11:52.360 you guys have unrealistic expectations. And then they had to edit the Reddit post and said,
00:11:57.540 actually, nevermind, Delta Force is just space marines. You're right. It is totally insane
00:12:03.640 what they did. And you hear this 150 aircraft, you know, obviously huge military buildup in the sea
00:12:10.380 and the coordination of all these agencies. And this I think is what is so heartening for a lot
00:12:15.160 of Americans. There are two views on the CIA. One view says the CIA is James Bond, Jason Bourne
00:12:22.880 controls the world. The other view of the CIA is that the CIA is burn after reading. It's the
00:12:28.820 Coen brothers movie. They can't do anything right. Every time they try to do anything,
00:12:32.300 they bungle it even further. They make a whole mess of the world and they should probably be disbanded.
00:12:37.240 These are the two views of the CIA. And then when an operation like this takes place,
00:12:44.400 you saw John Ratcliffe, CIA director with the president while it's going on, president and
00:12:48.020 Marco Rubio. You realize CIA was deeply, deeply involved as they always are in overthrowing regimes
00:12:53.460 in Latin America. You say, man, the CIA is pretty good at its job. Then people's objection to the CIA
00:13:00.040 would be that the CIA just does a bunch of like gay stuff. Then people's objection to the CIA is that
00:13:08.280 the CIA is just this element of this liberal bureaucracy, deep state that exists to expand
00:13:14.040 transgender rights in the Philippines. And that's stupid and it's a waste of money and it's actually
00:13:18.680 bad. And that's why we should stop these clandestine operations. But when the CIA is good at its job,
00:13:27.800 not incompetent, not burn after reading. And when the CIA is doing stuff that is good for America,
00:13:34.760 like defending America's core national interests, especially closer to home, you know, with proximity,
00:13:40.940 kicking out bad people, securing oil fields, like that kind of stuff. That's a big boost in confidence
00:13:47.140 for the CIA, for the American military, for the American government generally. Very, very impressive.
00:13:53.500 And so then Marco Rubio steps in. Marco Rubio, a man with a thousand jobs, about to be a thousand
00:13:58.660 and one. Rubio comes in and gives us the geopolitical implications. We'll get to that in
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00:15:16.500 M-I-C-H-A-E-L, K-N-A-W-L-E-S at checkout. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor and head of
00:15:24.640 USAID and and future Presidente de Venezuela, Marco Rubio, tell us the geopolitics.
00:15:33.480 The other message here is the following. You have a guy, like many people around the world,
00:15:37.640 they like to play games. You have a guy who decides he's going to invite Iran into his country,
00:15:41.700 is going to, you know, do the confiscation of American oil companies, is going to flood our
00:15:46.280 country with gang members, is going to take Americans prisoner and try to hold them for
00:15:51.360 hostage and trade them like he was able to do with the Biden administration. Basically likes to play
00:15:55.700 games all this time and thinks nothing's going to happen. And I hope what people now understand is
00:16:00.080 we have a president. The 47th president of the United States is not a game player. When he tells you
00:16:05.220 that he's going to do something, when he's good, tells you he's going to address a problem, he means
00:16:09.140 it. He actions it. I can tell you, I've watched this process now for 14, 15 years, been around it.
00:16:14.420 Everybody talks, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. When I get there, we're going to do
00:16:17.220 this, we're going to take, this is a president of action. Like, I don't understand yet how they
00:16:21.480 haven't figured this out. And now if you don't know, now you know. What's the next word when I heard
00:16:28.460 Marco Rubio quoting Biggie Smalls? And if you don't know, now you know. Fellas, is it fellas?
00:16:36.320 Is it, what is that word that comes after? Very impressive stuff. And an important point on the
00:16:42.000 geopolitical implications. The operation Venezuela, practically speaking, was as much about Afghanistan
00:16:49.500 as it was about Venezuela. We say it was about China, it was about Iran, it was about Russia.
00:16:54.700 It was also about Afghanistan. Because we keep losing wars, and we keep bungling. And we, I mean,
00:17:00.420 mostly Democrats, but some Republicans too. And we look weak, and we maintain the global order.
00:17:07.320 So we can't look weak. There is a very high cost to America looking incompetent and weak.
00:17:13.000 And the Afghanistan withdrawal was probably the apotheosis of bungling, stupid American foreign
00:17:19.900 policy. We just couldn't get anything right. We alternately stayed in Afghanistan,
00:17:24.520 way too long. We didn't have a clear objective of what Afghanistan was going to do. And then we got
00:17:28.040 out in the worst way possible. It was just a complete catastrophe. And Venezuela is the anti-Afghanistan
00:17:34.840 in every way. Where it was, what the interests were, how long it went, how efficiently it was carried out.
00:17:43.460 It was just, it was the anti-Afghanistan. And that sends a message that we're serious,
00:17:48.860 we're going to do stuff. Trump's America first, as I've contended for years at this point,
00:17:54.240 is not the America first of just retreating into our own shores. It's not the America first
00:17:59.640 primarily of nationalism. Another, another N-word that could have followed if you don't know,
00:18:04.760 now you know. Trump's America first is the America first of power, of world order, of empire,
00:18:13.620 a recognition that we are a great power. And we're not going to deny that. We're not going to deny
00:18:18.880 that in the left-wing way of opposing, you know, colonialism or something, hating our own national
00:18:25.840 history. But we're not going to oppose it in the left-wing, or the right-wing way rather,
00:18:29.880 which is the isolationist, libertarian, Republic of Yeoman farmers kind of way, which is just as
00:18:35.320 divorced from reality as the left-wing view. In some ways, more divorced from reality.
00:18:39.060 No, we're going to be great, and we're going to secure our interests. And in so doing,
00:18:43.820 that will conduce to the common good of the whole world. Because the world relies on the American
00:18:49.020 order. So who is going to run it? Who is going to run Venezuela? President Trump gives us a pretty
00:18:56.860 clear answer. What's the group you mentioned that would run Venezuela? Well, it's largely going to be
00:19:03.560 for a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me. Pause, pause it right, hold on,
00:19:09.640 give me, can we get a screen grab? Yeah, there it is. There, this poor man. I was in the cabinet
00:19:17.200 meeting when, right before Labor Day, it was going around the table, all the cabinet secretaries,
00:19:22.520 and the president gets to Marco Rubio, and he says, you know, this is a very important Labor Day for me
00:19:27.200 as a man who has four jobs. Well, ad number five, or six, or seven. Trump says, right there, right at
00:19:35.680 that very moment, but for at least a period of time, the people that are standing right behind me
00:19:39.740 will be running Venezuela. You look at Rubio's face, just, ah, here we go again. Ay, ay, ay.
00:19:48.840 Ay, oh, callate, señor presidente, por favor. No, no. But it's going to be him. That's great.
00:19:59.540 The way people are going to be debating this issue is going to be very, very silly. I'm saying even
00:20:06.900 on the right, because on the right, you have this divide between the interventionists and the
00:20:12.500 non-interventionists, and the pejorative term for interventionist is neocon, and the pejorative term
00:20:20.780 for non-interventionist is isolationist. You never hear someone say, I'm a proud isolationist. It's
00:20:26.880 always the other guy who accuses you of being an isolationist, or vice versa. You never hear someone
00:20:30.240 say, I love being a neocon. They say, no, no, I'm an interventionist or whatever. That debate is
00:20:38.380 very, very stupid. People are not sufficiently paying attention to this point. There is no
00:20:47.180 real debate between interventionists and non-interventionists. No serious person over
00:20:54.700 the age of 19, and 19-year-olds are not serious people just as a matter of definition, no serious
00:21:02.120 person says, I'm an interventionist or a non-interventionist. That is completely silly.
00:21:09.520 That is like history 101 freshman year of college silly. Nations have interests, and nations have
00:21:20.260 power and sometimes have to project power, and they have interests all around the world.
00:21:24.640 Nations always are intervening in various affairs. That doesn't mean that you have to go spread
00:21:33.640 democracy around the world like the neocons, and it doesn't mean that you have to just retreat into
00:21:40.580 your own borders that will never change. Borders are going to change because peoples grow, peoples die.
00:21:45.720 history happens, okay? There is no, do not, if anyone presents this to you as a debate between
00:21:53.860 interventionism and non-interventionist, if anyone comes out and says, I'm an interventionist,
00:21:57.520 I'm a non-interventionist, just tune them out. It's so silly. That is an admission of, I am not a
00:22:04.360 serious person. The question of what Donald Trump did in Venezuela is so much more interesting than that.
00:22:13.360 So get that out of your head. Obviously, that's not in Trump's head. And anyone who is surprised
00:22:19.340 by Trump intervening in Latin America just hasn't been paying attention, doesn't know what he means
00:22:23.980 by America first, doesn't know what he means by make America great again, doesn't know a thing
00:22:29.300 about American history or policy. Okay, that of course does not stop the left from whining about
00:22:35.120 this. But the way the left is whining, it is chef's kiss. I've never seen a more beautiful setup,
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00:24:02.080 the woman who would have been president. Donald Trump's actions. All right, no, I won't do the
00:24:12.160 Kamala voice. It would be too unbearable, especially given what she says. She says,
00:24:17.360 Donald Trump's actions in Venezuela do not make America safer, stronger, or more affordable.
00:24:22.700 Just put a pause right there. Kicking our chief geopolitical adversaries out of the hemisphere,
00:24:29.140 stopping the chief source of mass migration, which is itself a crime, the illegal immigration,
00:24:38.780 and always involves the cartels through the southern border, and securing oil fields that
00:24:45.400 had been stolen, oil properties that had been stolen by the Chavez and Maduro regimes,
00:24:51.360 that even if you hate the action, it certainly makes America safer, stronger, more affordable.
00:24:55.240 But wait, she goes on. The American people do not want this, and they're being tired. They're tired
00:24:59.940 of being lied to. I promise you, public opinion polls of this operation will reflect that it was
00:25:06.940 very popular. Of the operation itself, who knows what happens after that, but of the operation, I
00:25:11.560 promise you, people think it's awesome. Third, and this is the key, America needs leadership whose
00:25:19.180 priorities are lowering costs for working families, enforcing the rule of law, strengthening
00:25:23.340 alliances, and most importantly, putting the American people first. Okay, let's take it right in a row.
00:25:27.260 Lowering costs for working families. The things that drive up costs are energy, chiefly, and mass
00:25:34.220 migration. Mass migration, which is responsible for 100% of the increase in rent demand in New York
00:25:41.600 and California, 60% nationwide. Mass migration, which is responsible for screwing up the labor market
00:25:49.060 and wages, which is responsible for drains on our welfare system, which downstream, because of food
00:25:57.000 subsidies, end up raising the cost of groceries. It is the chief driver of unaffordability.
00:26:03.720 So if you want to lower costs for working families, getting rid of Maduro is a pretty smart thing to do.
00:26:09.940 Second, enforcing the rule of law. Maduro was the head of a cartel. Maduro was broadly considered the
00:26:21.060 illegitimate president of Venezuela. Maduro undermined the law, strengthening alliances. Maduro
00:26:29.280 was allies with all of our enemies. So if you want to strengthen alliances, getting rid of the guy who
00:26:34.880 is bringing our enemies into the hemisphere is probably a smart thing to do. And most importantly,
00:26:39.160 putting the American people first. Yeah, well, the predicate for this was Venezuelan drugs are
00:26:44.620 killing Americans. Venezuelan migrants are killing Americans. And the terrorists and adversaries that
00:26:53.660 Venezuela is lying with target Americans. So that would put the American people first. But forget
00:26:57.820 about all that. The criticism is of Trump's action, Trump's action to arrest Maduro and try him for
00:27:05.840 his crimes. And Kamala Harris says this is completely unacceptable. Rewind to the Biden-Harris
00:27:12.940 administration earlier this year, January 10th. Sorry, earlier within the last 365 days.
00:27:23.300 It was early last year, but still within the last year. Condemning Nicolas Maduro's illegitimate
00:27:28.580 attempt to seize power in Venezuela and announcing new actions against Maduro and his representatives
00:27:32.840 to support the Venezuelan people. Where is my, here it is. In solidarity with the Venezuelan people,
00:27:40.460 the U.S. government and our partners around the world are taking action today. The Department of State
00:27:43.860 is increasing the reward offers to up to $25 million each for information leading to the arrests
00:27:49.380 and or convictions of Nicolas Maduro and Maduro's minister of the interior, Diosdado Cabello.
00:27:56.140 The Department of State is also adding a new reward offer up to $15 million for the defense minister on
00:28:02.460 and on and on. The Biden-Harris administration offered $25 million of your money, of your taxpayer
00:28:12.000 money to do exactly what Trump just did. Trump just did the Biden-Harris policy, the policy that they
00:28:22.480 said was their policy, but they were too cowardly to do it. He just did the thing they promised to do,
00:28:28.040 except he did it for $25 million cheaper. Actually, well, depending on what happens to the rest of
00:28:33.200 these apparatchiks, possibly $40 million cheaper than Biden even tried to do it. So now Kamala Harris
00:28:38.660 just looks like a complete dope. Because not only were they not able to carry out the policy that
00:28:43.380 Trump carried out magnificently, she didn't even know what the policy was.
00:28:47.380 So Trump has now trolled the libs into defending a narco-terrorist communist and a man that the left
00:28:57.720 had been begging to remove from power for years and years and years, which exposes the left not
00:29:05.840 merely as communists or defenders of anti-American figures or defenders of, I don't know, narco-terrorism,
00:29:12.840 whatever. It reveals the left to be purely reflexive, purely reflexive. They previously
00:29:20.360 criticized Trump for being soft on Maduro. Now they're criticizing Trump for arresting Maduro,
00:29:26.000 for doing exactly what Biden-Harris wanted to do. They previously wanted to suck up to Russia
00:29:32.280 during the Hillary Clinton Great Reset, the first Great Reset. Then they attacked Trump as being a
00:29:40.500 Putin stooge. They're purely reflexive. I'm not saying that that reflexiveness doesn't exist at
00:29:46.100 all on the right. It does. It's politics. You gauge your reactions based in part on your adversaries.
00:29:51.340 But I think that the right has a firmer grasp on its own principles and even on objective reality
00:29:56.720 than the left does. The left at this point, I think, is purely reactionary. And I don't think
00:30:01.560 it's merely a coincidence that the left is self-consciously unmoored from an objective
00:30:07.880 moral order or even objective physical reality, as you see quite clearly in the transgender
00:30:11.880 ideology. The fact that the left is relativistic and subjectivistic about everything makes them
00:30:17.960 more susceptible to being purely reactive when it comes to policy, such that now they're attacking
00:30:22.420 Trump for doing the thing that they themselves wanted to do 360 days ago. So what, what, what happens
00:30:32.500 now? What happens now is our adversaries take note. I mentioned the Russia, Iran, China connections.
00:30:42.060 Also not a coincidence, I think. Chinese diplomats had just arrived in Venezuela to negotiate with Maduro.
00:30:49.220 So our chief geopolitical adversary arrives in Venezuela to negotiate with this guy. America then
00:30:56.040 comes in while they're waiting to eat their canapé and drink their champagne. The American military flies
00:31:02.120 in and just takes the president, just yoinks him right out of the palace. The Chinese are still in
00:31:10.100 Venezuela. They're still waiting on that meeting. They're going to be waiting a long time. So that
00:31:13.880 sends a very, very clear message. And then the question becomes, was this defensible? I think this
00:31:19.580 is defensible any way you slice it. When it comes to the question of persuading conservatives that this
00:31:24.040 is defensible because they don't want to have another replay of Iraq. We've, we've already gone
00:31:28.260 into that. This is not Iraq. This is kind of like the opposite of Iraq. It's kind of the opposite of
00:31:31.880 Afghanistan as far as foreign policy interventions go. But what about from the perspective of international
00:31:38.500 law? Some conservatives are going to say, there's no such thing as international law. And we all joke
00:31:42.840 about that a little bit because the UN is a joke and a lot of those international institutions are jokes.
00:31:47.560 But in principle, there is such a thing as international law. International law is an extrapolation
00:31:54.000 from the natural law, which like international law, we can't quite see it. We can't quite touch it.
00:31:59.480 There's not exactly a terrestrial authority that can perfectly exact justice about it. Nevertheless,
00:32:06.500 it exists. And it certainly exists in as much as the different nations of the world come together
00:32:12.440 and say, we're going to recognize certain treaties. We're going to recognize certain privileges.
00:32:17.360 We're going to behave in a certain way. There is such a thing as international law.
00:32:20.460 But from the perspective of international law, this was defensible. Any nations do not recognize
00:32:27.500 Maduro as being the legitimate president of Venezuela. This was a law enforcement action,
00:32:34.900 therefore, against an illegitimate leader of a nation. The Monroe Doctrine is pretty firmly established
00:32:42.620 in international law and geopolitics. And because of the Monroe Doctrine and because of the
00:32:50.360 proximity of Venezuela to the United States, it's much more defensible to say, look, there were
00:32:55.700 seriously threatening actions being taken very near to our borders. And out of self-protection,
00:33:03.280 which is a key aspect of the natural law and the international law, we had to go in and take this
00:33:07.880 action in a prudent way. I think just about any way you slice it, this is defensible.
00:33:13.020 Even down to the point that you can hardly call it a war. In what way was it a war?
00:33:20.860 Nevertheless, the liberal activist groups, notably including the Chicago Teachers Union,
00:33:25.940 are protesting the war. The Chicago Teachers Union is protesting the war in Venezuela
00:33:31.040 after the war already finished. We are five days into the year, if this weekend was any indication.
00:33:36.780 It's going to be a year where you want the news as it happens. You're going to want to manage the
00:33:41.020 situation, monitor the situation. No tabloids, no clickbait designed to stoke fake outrage.
00:33:46.060 Actual news, actual facts in real time, and analysis from the most trusted voices
00:33:49.640 in conservative media. This is why The Daily Wire exists. You get serious investigative journalism,
00:33:54.460 uncovering domestic issues like fraud in Minneapolis, real reporting on major international
00:33:57.840 developments like the U.S. operation in Venezuela. You also get live updates, breaking news alerts,
00:34:01.760 and full access to our daily ad-free uncensored shows and premium entertainment library. Go to
00:34:05.680 dailywire.com slash subscribe. Today is the last day to save 40% on a new annual membership. Do not
00:34:10.500 miss it. I want to tell you about my favorite comment on Friday. This is from abreen339, who says,
00:34:16.440 I would say voting for Gavin Newsom is the downside to hitting yourself in the head with a hammer.
00:34:21.660 This is from, I had a very interesting interview with a young streamer named Clavicular. I really
00:34:28.520 enjoyed speaking with him. Very interesting guy. You can catch that. I interviewed him just a few days
00:34:34.040 before he ran a guy over in his cyber truck, allegedly. Anyway, you can catch the interview
00:34:38.200 on my YouTube channel. He said, though, that I was wasting my time in politics. He said that all the
00:34:42.920 time I wasted in politics, I could have been bone smashing. I could have been hitting myself in the
00:34:46.460 head with a hammer. I said, is there any downside to doing that? He said, no. Looked at me like I was
00:34:50.440 the stupidest guy in the world. Said, of course there's no downside to hitting yourself in the head
00:34:53.840 with a hammer. But then later in the interview, he endorsed Gavin Newsom. So you're right,
00:34:57.220 maybe that's a downside. Emergency Chicago protest. No war on Venezuela. Stop the bombings.
00:35:06.780 Saturday, January 3rd, Federal Plaza, 5 p.m. This came out from the Chicago Teachers. Why is the
00:35:12.760 Chicago Teachers Union organizing foreign policy demonstrations? Yeah, great question. However,
00:35:19.000 in this case, I think it's really a win-win. Just like I said, you extract Maduro from Venezuela,
00:35:23.680 you bring them to New York, then you depose Momdani in New York, you make Maduro the mayor
00:35:28.020 of New York. It's not ideal in any case, but both places would improve. That's a win-win, I think.
00:35:33.980 Well, so too here, it's a win-win. The Chicago Teachers Union demands no war on Venezuela.
00:35:39.920 Hey, guys, good news. There's no war on Venezuela. Good news. By the time you are gathering for your
00:35:46.020 protest, there's no war on Venezuela. Stop the bombings. Oh, hey, guys, even more great news.
00:35:52.020 There are no bombings. You missed it. The war, such as it is, was so efficiently fought and won
00:36:01.680 that you didn't even have time to complain about it. And you didn't even have time to whine.
00:36:08.540 And you guys are really good at whining. You guys are the Michael Jordan of whining.
00:36:13.000 You're the Delta Force of whining. So you should have, if anyone was going to whine in time,
00:36:17.520 it was going to be you, but you missed it because of how efficiently this military operation was carried
00:36:21.100 out. It's even better than the precedents for it in American history. Because we've done some,
00:36:27.380 I mentioned, we've intervened in Latin America a zillion times. But even recently, you think of
00:36:33.060 George Bush, George Bush I in Panama. That intervention where we took out Noriega, that
00:36:39.040 lasted a relatively short period of time. Or Ronald Reagan in Grenada, same thing.
00:36:45.400 So of relatively recent vintage, you had two pretty good Republican presidents, Reagan especially
00:36:50.660 good, carry out similar operations. Trump did it even better than they did, even better than they
00:36:56.700 did. Ronald Reagan, the man who won the Cold War, and George H.W. Bush, widely considered one of the
00:37:01.880 great foreign policy presidents we've ever had. Trump actually was even more efficient than them.
00:37:06.860 The Chicago Teachers Union would have had time to protest, Reagan and Bush, not Trump.
00:37:12.320 So who's going to take over Venezuela? Everyone's been talking about this lady,
00:37:16.440 Maria Karina Machado. She's the opposition leader right now. And yet all these neuralgic,
00:37:22.940 neurotic kind of people on the right saying, oh no, this is bad. She's a globalist. It's all about
00:37:27.280 Israel or something. I guess she likes Israel. It looks like it's not going to be her because she
00:37:33.080 just doesn't seem to have the support. So for right now, Marco Rubio is going to help run it.
00:37:38.740 Donald Trump's going to help run it. But they are going to leave part of the government
00:37:41.800 intact. This is also why the Venezuela intervention is quite different from Iraq. In Iraq,
00:37:48.220 they dissolved the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, one of the crucial strategic blunders of the Iraq war.
00:37:54.620 But in Venezuela, they're going to leave a lot of the government in place. They're leaving the
00:37:58.880 vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. They're leaving her in place. And then Trump is simply saying,
00:38:04.800 look, we're going to leave you in place. But if you do anything that we don't like,
00:38:08.820 we're going to kill you. That's what he said. He said in a telephone interview,
00:38:13.520 Trump apparently said, quote, if she doesn't do what's right, she is going to pay a very big price,
00:38:18.120 probably bigger than Maduro. Maduro was kidnapped and is awaiting trial in New York City.
00:38:22.980 What's the bigger price? He goes, yeah, look, we're going to leave your government basically
00:38:26.120 in place. We don't want chaos. We don't want insurgency. We don't want the place to dissolve
00:38:29.460 into civil war. We're going to leave your government in place. This isn't about spreading
00:38:32.240 democracy or liberalism or whatever. We're going to leave it in place. And if you mess up,
00:38:37.460 we're going to kill you. And then the next guy is going to be in place. Kabish. You understand?
00:38:45.140 According to the New York Times, it was Maduro's constant dancing that was the last straw for Trump.
00:38:52.680 It was Maduro's dancing. He was singing, imagine all the people live. That was for me,
00:38:58.440 that was it, is to take him out. And so they're going to put Delsian. Apparently,
00:39:02.180 according to the reporting, her ability to increase oil output under sanctions impressed
00:39:07.440 some members of the Trump administration. The fact that she was able to perform her job very well,
00:39:13.400 even amid US pressure, was impressive. So they say, okay, look, we don't like you. We don't agree
00:39:17.920 with you. We don't obviously, you know, but you seem relatively competent. So anyway, run the country.
00:39:22.680 If you get out of line, we're going to kill you. We're going to go to the next guy.
00:39:24.580 Good? All good? Okay. This is political realism. The neocon early 2000s spread democracy around the
00:39:34.260 world guys, they would have put in Maria Karina Machado. Or I don't know enough about Machado,
00:39:39.980 but they would have put in one of these brave opposition leaders. They would have installed
00:39:44.740 Greta Thunberg or something, right? No. We're going to deal with real tough people because this is a
00:39:49.940 real tough situation because we're focused primarily on American interests and longstanding US foreign
00:39:55.860 policy. That's realism. Realism and fortitude do not need to be opposed to each other,
00:40:04.440 which is why President Trump's already threatening Cuba.
00:40:08.420 Now has no income. They got all of their income from Venezuela,
00:40:13.100 from the Venezuelan oil. They're not getting any of it. And Cuba literally is ready to fall. And
00:40:18.280 you have a lot of great Cuban Americans that are going to be very happy about this.
00:40:22.820 Marco Rubio has really-
00:40:24.520 Okay, there we go. Cuba might fall because Venezuela was propping up Cuba.
00:40:29.780 So this is another consequence. You had Cuba, which has been inviting our enemies into the
00:40:33.840 hemisphere for 60 years because of a Democrat, because of Kennedy. And Trump says, yeah,
00:40:39.940 we're going to see about that. How about Colombia? Mr. President, what about Colombia?
00:40:44.220 Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United
00:40:51.620 States. And he's not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.
00:40:54.980 What does that mean? He's not going to be doing it very long.
00:40:56.920 He's not doing it very long. He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing
00:41:03.540 it very long.
00:41:03.820 So there will be an operation by the US in Colombia?
00:41:06.040 It sounds good to me.
00:41:07.880 Sounds good to me. Now notice, he's not saying we're going to go invade Colombia.
00:41:11.220 He's not saying we're going to go invade Cuba. He's saying we could. Maybe we will. What do
00:41:19.080 you think about that? He's saying this not just about Latin America. He's saying this even when
00:41:23.240 it comes to Greenland, a territory that Trump has long desired, that the US State Department
00:41:27.560 has long desired now for over 150 years. We need Greenland for national security,
00:41:34.040 not for minerals. We have so many sites for minerals and oil and everything. We have more
00:41:38.700 oil than any other country in the world. We need Greenland for national security.
00:41:43.700 And if you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and Chinese
00:41:47.620 ships all over the place.
00:41:50.160 We need Greenland and we're going to have it. That's what he's saying. He's not angry.
00:41:53.940 He's not ideological. He's just saying, look, we need it and we're going to have it,
00:41:57.560 you know, so we can do it the easy way or the hard way. I'm just telling you.
00:42:00.680 I'm describing. I'm not even prescribing. I'm describing. We're going to have it.
00:42:04.040 Now, politics is getting real again. This is the real sign of the times that comes out of the
00:42:10.420 Venezuela operation. Politics has not been real. Geopolitics has not been real for 35 years now.
00:42:19.960 Really since the end of the Cold War. After the Cold War, we had unquestioned American hegemony
00:42:27.040 up until 9-11. 9-11 started to shake the ideologues, the ideologues who said that liberalism had won,
00:42:36.580 history had ended, there would be no more history. There would be no more conflict. We would all just
00:42:43.140 kind of kumbaya. There would be global trade. We'd all focus on material prosperity. And that was it.
00:42:50.080 And then 9-11 shook that a little bit because Muslim fanatics waged a crusades-like campaign
00:42:59.380 to attack that liberal materialist American-led West. And then what did we do? We responded with
00:43:06.860 even more surreal, abstract, hyper-real politics, where we said, we're going to double down. We're
00:43:12.880 going to super-duper spread our ideology now. And we're going to plant freedom seeds all over the
00:43:18.960 Middle East. And we're going to have Madisonian democracy spring up. And that didn't happen.
00:43:23.620 It was part and parcel of the same silly, surreal politics that we had since the end of the Cold
00:43:27.820 War. And now politics is getting real again. And now Trump is coming out and he's not talking about
00:43:34.200 the sweet sound of freedom that all American ears, all the ears of all human beings perk up for,
00:43:40.800 the longings of our hearts for the writings of John Rawls. And oh, if we could only drop copies of
00:43:47.840 the second treatise of government down, I don't know. He says, hey, look, this guy, he stole our
00:43:53.600 royal properties and he was inviting our enemies in. And so we took him. We just came in the middle
00:43:58.560 of the night and we took him. And we're going to do that to you too, if you do it again. So get in
00:44:01.880 line. Hey, Colombia, you saw what we just did to him? Get in line. Hey, Cuba, get in line.
00:44:09.840 We're not playing around. Hey, we need Greenland. Sorry, we need it. China and Russia are threatening
00:44:18.100 us. We need it. It's ridiculous that Denmark controls it. Most of the Greenlanders want to
00:44:21.740 be part of America anyway, in some way. Probably we don't want the 51st state, but in some kind of
00:44:26.640 tier. Anyway, we're going to get it. Somehow we're just going to get it. Okay. We need it.
00:44:30.840 Capisce? That kind of realism, I think, is refreshing for a lot of people. Because the
00:44:39.600 America first impulse, certainly not for Trump and not for me, was never about just burying
00:44:44.640 our heads in the sand or something. The America first impulse was about recognizing reality
00:44:49.500 and recognizing that governments have a responsibility to their own constituents first,
00:44:55.860 to their own citizens first. We need to put our interests first, in accord with justice,
00:45:01.020 in accord with national law, in accord even with international law. But we just got to know
00:45:06.140 whose team we're on, folks. That's what America first certainly has meant to Trump and has meant
00:45:11.260 to me, I think has meant to most Trump supporters. Some people were a little confused about it,
00:45:14.420 I think. And that's what Trump is doing. Okay. This return of reality, I think, is even part
00:45:23.560 and parcel with the domestic agenda. The fact that Trump won, the Republicans won on opposing
00:45:28.520 transgenderism or opposing DEI or whatever. What unites all of those apparently disparate things
00:45:35.920 is a recognition of reality over the fantasies of people who have become too abstract in their
00:45:43.980 ideology. That's what unites all of those things. That's what Trump is bringing back.
00:45:48.460 Meanwhile, we're importing communists to go run New York City, who are extolling the warmth of
00:45:55.440 collectivism, who are talking about transitioning, speaking of transitions, transitioning from private
00:46:00.840 property to the collective good, appointing fire chiefs who have never served in fire departments,
00:46:07.460 but at least the new fire chief is a lesbian. That's what matters, of course.
00:46:10.540 So you're seeing a lot of surreality. You're seeing a clear distinction, which will very likely
00:46:16.900 help Trump in the midterms, help the Republicans in the midterms, might help the administration even
00:46:21.640 into 2028. One story I really, really want to get to, I don't have time though. This will be a
00:46:27.160 little tease. Scott Adams, the great Dilbert cartoonist, who's also been a marvelous broadcaster
00:46:33.100 over the years, made great observations about the Trump phenomenon, especially early on. Just
00:46:38.900 a delightful figure in politics. He's dying. He has cancer. He thinks he'll die this January.
00:46:46.060 And he says he's going to convert to Christianity. And weirdly, some Christians are upset about that.
00:46:50.580 Anyway, we'll have to get to it tomorrow because today's Music Monday. The rest of the show continues
00:46:54.080 now. You don't want to miss it. Become a member. Use code Knowles Canada. Be really as a check out
00:46:57.160 for two months free on all annual plans.
00:47:03.100 Oh, if this is an illusion, an echo of a voice that has died, and soon that echo will cease.
00:47:20.860 They say that Merlin is mad.
00:47:38.900 They say he was a king in Dovid, the son of a princess of lost Atlantis. They say the future
00:47:47.600 and the past are known to him. That the fire and the wind tell him their secrets. That the magic of
00:47:55.680 the hillfolk and druids come forth at his easy command. They say he slew hundreds, hundreds. Do you hear?
00:48:06.400 That the world burned and trembled at his wrath.
00:48:09.400 The Merlin died long before you and I were born.
00:48:17.480 Merlin Emrys has returned to the land of the living.
00:48:22.480 Fortigan is gone. Rome is gone. The Saxon is here.
00:48:29.480 Saxon Hengist has assembled the greatest war host ever seen in the Island of the Mighty. And before the summer is through, he means to take the throne.
00:48:39.560 And he will have it. If we are too busy squabbling amongst ourselves to take up arms against him, here is your hope. A king will arise to hold all Britain in his hand. A high king. He will be the wonder of the world.
00:48:53.560 The wonder of the world. You. To a future of peace. There'll be no peace in these lands till we are all dust.
00:49:05.560 Men of the Island of the Mighty, you stand together. You stand as Britons. You stand as one.
00:49:15.560 A great darkness is falling upon this land. These brothers are our only hope to stand against it.
00:49:25.560 Not our only hope.
00:49:28.560 They say Merlin slew 17 men with his own hands. At Gathay, he slew 500.
00:49:36.560 No man is capable of such a thing.
00:49:40.560 The immortal man.